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It’s the start of the Christmas season. I know it’s the start of the Christmas season, not just because Brighton is currently blanketed in snow, but also because 24 Ways—the advent calendar for geeks—has kicked off with its first article. Hurray! And this year, all of the articles will be available as a book from Five Simple Steps for a mere £8, with all the proceeds going to charity. Grab a copy before the end of December because this is a time-limited offer.

This year, 24 Ways isn’t the only advent calendar for geeks. While I was off galavanting up and down the west coast of the US last month, my cohorts at Clearleft were scheming up a little something special: an advent calendar for fonts. Every day, for 24 days, release a Fontdeck font for one year’s free use.

When they told me, I thought “great idea!” …then they told me they were going to call it an “adfont” calendar and there was much groaning and gnashing of teeth.

The lovely visual design comes courtesy of Michelle, the latest addition to the Clearleft team, and it mimics a type case; just like the one we happen to have in the office. Every office needs a type case.

Originally, the interface was going to be one looooong type case with some JavaScript layered on top to allow smooth horizontal navigation. But when Rich asked me for some advice on implementing it, I steered him down a different path. Instead of displaying everything horizontally, why not use media queries to show just enough drawers to fit the user’s browser window and allow the rest to stack vertically?

I didn’t think he’d take my challenge seriously but he’s only gone and bloody done it!